Determining Ethnicity: The Lubavitch Case

It has been suggested by Cohen [1978] that ethnicity is based on a “series of nesting dichotomizations” of shared diacritics wherein group membership occurs along a social scale of these markers by degree of inclusiveness and exclusiveness perceived of both subjectively and objectively by the group and by others. This paper is an attempt to explain the process of membership through the use of diacritic variables and the determination of sliding internal and external boundaries in the case of the Lubavitch, a contemporary chassidic group.

The special problems of this movement surround the need for selection of group-specific markers from multiple socio-cultural and historical Jewish categories which survive in the modern, urban context. Recruitment into the group involves a progressive acceptance of a series of clearly known “markers” that emerge as gradual membership commitments. These diacritics form, therefore, a taxonomy of involvement into a complex set of criteria separating the membership into a differentiating subculture.